Ultimate Cedar Cove Collection

He chuckled. “If you say so.”

As she fumbled in her purse for her car keys, Jon stopped her. “I’ve wanted to know you better for years,” he said in a low voice.

Maryellen couldn’t have muttered a word had the fate of the world depended on her reply. She envisioned herself thanking him in a flippant, matter-of-fact way, then whirling around and unlocking her car door. Instead she stood rooted to the spot, staring up at him. He was going to kiss her. That couldn’t happen; she simply couldn’t allow it. Yet, all the while objection after objection marched through her mind, she found herself slowly—against every rational dictate—leaning toward him. Her head was raised, her eyes half-closed.

When his lips met hers, it wasn’t the slow, seductive kiss she’d anticipated. Jon lifted her from the pavement until she stood on the very tips of her toes. His mouth was hungry, urgent, needy as his lips seduced hers. She tasted his passion as his tongue swept her mouth and swallowed his moan as it went on and on and on until she was sure she’d faint.

No man, not even her husband, had kissed her so thoroughly, so passionately. When he broke it off, Maryellen was breathless and speechless. Had he released her, she would’ve crumpled into a heap on the ground.

“Oh, no.” When she could manage to speak, these were the first words that emerged.

“No?” Jon asked.

“Oh…no.”

“My ego’s taking something of a bruising here. Can’t you do better than that?”

“Jon.” She gave herself a moment to gather her composure. “That was—”

“Pretty damn wonderful if you ask me.”

“Yes…it was.” Maryellen couldn’t begin to explain to him why this was such a mistake.

“I’ve been wanting to do that all evening,” he said in a satisfied tone.

Arms dangling at her sides, Maryellen slumped against her car. It was still hard to breathe, and for some reason, she felt as if she was about to cry. “I think we need to talk.”

“We’ll talk,” Jon promised, kissing her again. She’d been half expecting it, and even though she was prepared this time, his touch devastated her, left her gasping with shock and pleasure.

“Soon,” he said as he eased his lips from hers. “All right?”

“Okay,” she agreed hoarsely, although she couldn’t recall what was going to happen “soon.”

Once secure and inside her car, she placed her hands on the steering wheel. She was trembling so badly she found it impossible to insert the key into the ignition. What had she done? What had she unleashed on them both?

Dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, Grace started outside to look around the house and garage. She couldn’t delay winterizing her home any longer. Dan had always taken care of such chores; now, for the first time in her marriage, Grace would need to complete these unfamiliar tasks herself.

Thankfully, her son-in-law had stepped in whenever she’d required help. He’d shown her how to change the furnace filter, fixed a leaking faucet and repaired the dryer, but Grace couldn’t continue to rely on Paul, dear as he was. She had to learn to cope with these situations on her own.

The first thing she did was stare at the open garage door. For the last two weeks, the automatic door had refused to budge. Grace had managed to open it manually, but last evening it had stuck in the open position. It needed to be fixed before someone saw it as an invitation to rob her.

Standing in front of the garage, wearing Dan’s oversized gloves, hands on hips, Grace regarded the garage door like a dragon ready to roar down sulfur and fire upon her.

“Get a grip,” she muttered under her breath. “You can do this. You’ve done everything else—you can tackle a garage door, too.” Okay, first she had to find the manual and the necessary tools. Dan was always so proud of his workbench. He had every gadget imaginable. Yet he hadn’t taken a single one with him when he walked away. Like everything else about his disappearance, this baffled her.

Was this other woman so incredible, so amazing, that she provided for his every need? Or did the things that used to matter to him no longer mean anything? He’d left behind his clothes, his tools, even his wedding band. He’d taken nothing more than the clothes on his back.

Grace didn’t know where she’d find the manual. She thought Dan kept his various instruction books in a box somewhere in the garage. She saw a stack of boxes piled beneath the workbench; she slid the top one out. Kneeling on the concrete floor, she opened the lid. Instead of the manual, she found the thick woolen shirt she’d bought him last Christmas. She lifted it and gasped. The shirt had been shredded. It looked as though Dan had taken a pair of scissors to it and systematically cut the fifty-dollar shirt into strips. All that remained intact was the collar and cuffs.

Grace remembered asking Dan about the shirt, remembered him telling her it was his favorite, but she’d never seen him wear it. After a while, it had completely slipped her mind.

Another box revealed a second ugly surprise. Kelly had given Dan a highly touted book on World War II for his birthday. He’d thanked her profusely and said he’d read it. But he hadn’t. Instead it, too, had been destroyed, the pages ripped from the binding. Grace discovered two more boxes of his carnage. It was as though he’d planted them there for her to find. Dan couldn’t have shouted his hate more loudly had he been standing directly in front of her.

Shaken to the core, Grace discarded the boxes in the garbage and sat down on the back porch steps. Her first reaction was anger. How dare he do such a thing. How dare he! Then she felt the overwhelming urge to weep. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to give in to them. She refused to hand her husband the power to reduce her to a sniveling, spineless weakling.

Buttercup joined her and seemed to sense Grace’s distress.

“What would make him do this?” she asked her golden retriever.

Buttercup looked up at her with big, soulful eyes.

“I don’t know either, girl. I just don’t know.” Needing to hold someone, Grace put her arms around the dog’s neck and buried her face in Buttercup’s fur.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, feeling intense anger, regret and simmering emotion. After a while she got to her feet. The garage door wasn’t going to fix itself.

In the process of digging through the neat stack of boxes, she eventually happened upon the manual. She flipped through it and quickly read over the information. The book offered suggestions for troubleshooting, which she studied in detail. Again and again she reminded herself that she could handle this.

She’d just positioned the stepladder when a pickup truck pulled into the driveway. Grace recognized Cliff and hesitated, her feet on the fourth rung up.

“Hi,” he called, climbing out of the truck. Buttercup trotted over to greet him. While friendly, the golden retriever was protective of Grace and wasn’t keen on letting strangers into the yard. To Grace’s surprise, Buttercup greeted Cliff as if he were family.

“Hi,” she said, wishing now that she’d worn a newer pair of jeans and a less faded sweatshirt.

“Charlotte mentioned that you had a problem with your garage door,” he said, bending down to scratch her dog’s ears.

Grace blinked, unsure how Olivia’s mother had known about her problem, but then Charlotte always did have a way of finding out things.

Cliff straightened and seemed to await her invitation. “I came to see if I could give you a hand.”

At this point, Grace wasn’t about to refuse help. “I’d be grateful if you’d look at it. I’ve been reading the manual but I haven’t had a chance to check out the mechanism yet.”

“I have a knack for stuff like this.” He glanced around. “I’m gifted at cleaning leaves out of rain gutters, too.”

Grace laughed. “You must be an angel in disguise.”

“I don’t think so.” He helped her down from the ladder and even before Grace could get inside the house to brew a pot of coffee, he had the garage door working again.

“What was wrong?” she asked, astonished that it had been so easy.

“The wheels jumped out of alignment. I just put it back on track. Nothing to it.”

While Cliff carried the ladder over to the house, Grace reached for the rake and started gathering together a huge pile of oak leaves. When she’d finished, Cliff helped her pack them inside plastic bags.

“Are you ready for that coffee?” she asked, when they’d tied the last bag.

“That’d be great.”

She welcomed him into her kitchen and set out two big mugs. “I don’t know how to thank you.”